I like blogging. I do. However, I have a problem. I’ve got a Twitter account. There’s something about the 140-character limit micro-blog tool that makes it incredibly difficult to hold onto a concept long enough to form it into a five-paragraph essay, let alone a multi-page diatribe about how browser X‘s implementation of CSS property Y is wrong.

It’s been an observed impact of the Internet that people generally are much more impatient when it comes to searching for data. If you can’t Google it or Wikipedia it in under five minutes, then the information doesn’t exist or isn’t worth knowing.

It seems to me at the very least that Twitter is doing the exact same thing to my ability to write at length about any topic. I could devise a narrative about my recent exploration of the topic of RDFa and talk at length of my conclusions regarding its impact on future web development… or I could come up with 140 characters or less to the effect of “RDFa is sort of like XFN. But not. At what point is extra semantic markup too much bloat?”

The trick is staving off the need for instant gratification in exchange for the fulfillment I get from a more carefully considered writing that covers the topic in more depth. I think that sums up Internet use in general these days.

Alright, fess up. How do you fight your Twitter addictions?